Thanks for asking! By far my favorite part of the book was the quality of the prose, which is so very high. This is pretty standard for me—I tend to feel pull towards use of language over anything else. But I really felt that Lillian Fishman has such a gift for tone, or for mood—there’s an almost dreamlike quality that settles over the entire book like a spell and it’s very lovely. Without digging into anything too rigorously (something I can get very carried away with) I think this has to do with her use of metaphor and other figurative language, which in general is excellent throughout, in a way that I want to call ‘synesthetic’—a beautiful example comes midway through the book, where she paints this gorgeous picture of a train car midday in the city as this timeless, liminal space separated from the ‘real world’ of office jobs, and talking about the random assortment of people present there, who are in a sense all outliers, she uses the phrase “soft unpredictability,” which I think is just gorgeous, this abstract concept of unpredictability modified by the word “soft” and given its associations. Again this happens when she refers to the physical form of a wine glass as a “warm, strict body.” There’s another spot where she refers to Olivia’s hair as “loose and turbulent.” It’s things like this, these small combinations of words that are kind of breathtaking to me. There’s a great quote from Anne Lamott in “Bird by Bird” where, after she refers to Gardner’s idea that the novel needs to be a vivid and continuous dream, she says to imagine your characters moving across a pond via lily pads. “If each lily pad is beautifully, carefully written, the reader will stay with you as you move toward the other side of the pond, needing only the barest of connections—such as rhythm, tone, or mood.” This book nails that for me, with tone and mood. These are really only tiny details I’ve picked out—I have so, so many quotes saved from this book and there are so many I could talk about.
I fear I will speak much less eloquently about content but I will proceed in the hopes of not completely bungling the ideas at play here. I liked the way that conventional monogamous relationships were challenged, i.e. that even though a relationship can look a certain way to us from the outside that isn’t grounds for judgment. Which obviously isn’t a hugely novel idea in and of itself, but it doesn’t have to be. Melissa Febos said something that stuck with me in her recent book “Body Work,” that “every sex scene that we write has the potential to expand a reader’s entire conception of goodness,” in relation to broadening people’s horizons as to what words or actions can be present in loving sex. So I think these representations of relationships like this are important. Even though there are some ways that the relationship at the center of the novel is conventional—the power dynamic with Nathan at the top, the fact that in the end the most potent relationship Eve has is with a man—I really do feel like the entire tenor of this relationship between Eve and Nathan and Olivia will seem unconventional to a lot of readers and this book does hold the power to expand those readers’ ideas of goodness, of what can be good for a person. I’m sure there are other things I’m forgetting here.
Definitely one of my favorite books I’ve read this year, and as I said a huge part of that is that I think Lillian is a phenomenal writer, someone with a real gift for prose. I’m so excited to read whatever it is she puts out next.
I am so excited! I adored "Acts of Service" and have been hoping so much for it to get the attention it deserves.
I'm glad you're excited! What did you love about the book? If its too long to put it in a comment you can email
Thanks for asking! By far my favorite part of the book was the quality of the prose, which is so very high. This is pretty standard for me—I tend to feel pull towards use of language over anything else. But I really felt that Lillian Fishman has such a gift for tone, or for mood—there’s an almost dreamlike quality that settles over the entire book like a spell and it’s very lovely. Without digging into anything too rigorously (something I can get very carried away with) I think this has to do with her use of metaphor and other figurative language, which in general is excellent throughout, in a way that I want to call ‘synesthetic’—a beautiful example comes midway through the book, where she paints this gorgeous picture of a train car midday in the city as this timeless, liminal space separated from the ‘real world’ of office jobs, and talking about the random assortment of people present there, who are in a sense all outliers, she uses the phrase “soft unpredictability,” which I think is just gorgeous, this abstract concept of unpredictability modified by the word “soft” and given its associations. Again this happens when she refers to the physical form of a wine glass as a “warm, strict body.” There’s another spot where she refers to Olivia’s hair as “loose and turbulent.” It’s things like this, these small combinations of words that are kind of breathtaking to me. There’s a great quote from Anne Lamott in “Bird by Bird” where, after she refers to Gardner’s idea that the novel needs to be a vivid and continuous dream, she says to imagine your characters moving across a pond via lily pads. “If each lily pad is beautifully, carefully written, the reader will stay with you as you move toward the other side of the pond, needing only the barest of connections—such as rhythm, tone, or mood.” This book nails that for me, with tone and mood. These are really only tiny details I’ve picked out—I have so, so many quotes saved from this book and there are so many I could talk about.
I fear I will speak much less eloquently about content but I will proceed in the hopes of not completely bungling the ideas at play here. I liked the way that conventional monogamous relationships were challenged, i.e. that even though a relationship can look a certain way to us from the outside that isn’t grounds for judgment. Which obviously isn’t a hugely novel idea in and of itself, but it doesn’t have to be. Melissa Febos said something that stuck with me in her recent book “Body Work,” that “every sex scene that we write has the potential to expand a reader’s entire conception of goodness,” in relation to broadening people’s horizons as to what words or actions can be present in loving sex. So I think these representations of relationships like this are important. Even though there are some ways that the relationship at the center of the novel is conventional—the power dynamic with Nathan at the top, the fact that in the end the most potent relationship Eve has is with a man—I really do feel like the entire tenor of this relationship between Eve and Nathan and Olivia will seem unconventional to a lot of readers and this book does hold the power to expand those readers’ ideas of goodness, of what can be good for a person. I’m sure there are other things I’m forgetting here.
Definitely one of my favorite books I’ve read this year, and as I said a huge part of that is that I think Lillian is a phenomenal writer, someone with a real gift for prose. I’m so excited to read whatever it is she puts out next.
I agree, I picked out that subway scene in the interview!
how exciting! Acts of Service stirred up many feelings for me. looking forward to the interview, and thank you for the view ☺️
Great! Would love to know what kinds of feelings it stirred up for you, you can email if its too long to say here
Thank you so much for a needed interlude and now going to look at this book. Sounds like it will be an interesting interview.